Hells Angels are moving into my area for the first time. I have a generally negative view of them, but have some friends who feel otherwise. I would love to hear your experiences related to the Angels specifically, but “1%” clubs as well.
I have a very negative view of them.
I’ve been the victim of violence from a HA member, for no other reason than “he decided to sit down, extremely drunk and high, at our camp at a music festival”. After offering him a beer and having a chit chat, hoping he would lose interest, he decided to start groping a 16 year old. I was the unlucky person chosen to ask him to leave. That didn’t go very well.
Second, someone in my family unfortunately got mixed up in HA and received a prison sentence from dealing drugs. He has now escaped that environment but it left me in little doubt that there’s few “noble knights” in that group, only drug-dealing gang-members.
Thirdly the country I come from has witnessed multiple wars between immigrant gangs and HA, as well as between HA and Bandidos. At one point they were firing stolen anti-tank rockets into a building where the rival gang was having a party. It’s hard to have a great impression of someone who chooses to fire an AT-4 in through a building.
So yeah, HA no thanks.
Yes, my partner has good friends whose son got briefly entangled with the HA, they ripped him off and fucked up his life a treat, not good people. But they are far from the worst gang here
Sweden right? Or Denmark if not so I guess.
I mean it’s not the same there as in the USA I GUESS at least.
in Europe?!
Living in France I had no idea what those HA are and thought it was an American thing
What do you mean it didn’t go well? You’re not being specific enough
It meant I got a couple of punches and as a scared 17-year being punched by a drunk Hells Angels member, I took it and did nothing.
No need to qualify that you “did nothing,” my friend. From what you described, you had the courage to stand up when drawing the short stick (because nothing made you follow through when you were “chosen”) and then you kept yourself and everyone else as safe as possible by not retaliating. Can you imagine how things might have escalated if you had?
You have my sincere respect for what you’ve described here.
I agree /u/sunbeam60 is tough as nails.
The big clubs are all an organized crime syndicate. How bad the situation will be mostly depend on your exact location. Especially with the Hell’s Angels the involvement in organized crime depends a lot on the exact charter. Some just do illegal gambling, some light narcotics and gun trades while others are also involved in human trafficking and forced prostitution.
In most of the western world organized crime usually stays away from regular citizens. That’s why many people here say if you don’t approach them they will leave you be. But crime always affects regular people. And there is basically nothing you can do. It’s just up to luck whether you specifically get affected or not.
When the Hell’s Angels started to move into Europe most politicians just ignored it. But a war between locals clubs, the Hell’s Angles and then the Banditos (who also moved into Europe) broke out almost immediately. Some people even got killed. But politicians only stepped in when a civilian got killed or severely injured because some gang member shot a rocket into a rivaling gang’s bar. Then shit moved back into the shadows.
Given the area, I’m pretty sure they are aiming to take over the meth trade/transportation here.
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Eh, thanks but I’m not moving just because of this. I don’t think it’s a positive development, but neither do I expect drastic changes. This has always been an area they would have been comfortable in, honestly (history of illicit economy, rural hills, etc).
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My ex’s parents were in one. They’re some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met, so it just kinda confirmed to me that biker gangs are for terminally stupid people who think the vroom vroom sounds cool and that leather vests are badass.
A friend joined them to get protection because he got beaten a lot. He left again after his first drug trafficking job was offered to him. (and fortunately he was allowed to leave because he didn’t know enough yet)
My schoolmates rented a club house for parties and the bikers wanted to do the security themselves. The have beaten people and kicked one drunken guy lying on the floor who argued too much with them. Completely unprofessional.
This was late 2000s in rural Germany.
I’ve always wondered, in the colder regions of the world in winter, what do motorcycle gangs do?
I guess the answer is sell drugs and punch people?
Wear an extra layer?
You must not have experienced a Chicago/New York winter before
No personal experiences per se, but my partner has good friends whose son got briefly entangled with the HA, they ripped him off and fucked up his life a treat, not good people. But they are far from the worst gang here
In my last job we had a Hells Angels Supporter Clubhouse on our complex… well, we never had any problems with them, and our encounters mostly comprised of a “good morning” or something like that. Sometimes they held barbecues where i attended and, what can i say, just a bunch of more or less nice motorcycle riding greybeards.
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So as a biker you just assume other bikers will drive recklessly and warn each one about cops?
You should have a negative view of them. Just because they don’t personally fuck with you doesn’t mean they aren’t worth putting down.
I’ve had gang related people fuck with me. It sucks and at times made me want to kill myself and I still deal with that pretty much daily. I have PTSD. I know a lot of the people that fucked with me and now it feels like I live in the same town as my rapists* and I have to see the fucked up faces occasionally.
They are heartless and worthless.
Cops don’t care when I try to get help.
- Rapist is the best term I’ve found for them even though I wasn’t physically raped or anything. They are heartless.
They deserve to be fucked with… but don’t do it if you’re not ready for …basically war… burglary, robberies, identity theft…
“I have to see my rapists living in my city, I mean I wasn’t raped or anything but yeah. You should definitely fuck with the biker gangs tho”
Least terminally online comment
Some biker gangs are trying to look out for their community. Most of the time, that community stops when your skin color gets too dark. Hell’s Angels are no exception to this. Co-founder Sonny Barger said in a 2000 BBC interview, “The club, as a whole, is not racist but we probably have enough racist members that no black guy is going to get in it.” So essentially they are saying racism isn’t a deal breaker for them.
So they are extremely racist, typically fascist as by their organization structure, and typically don’t add to society.
That all said, there are exceptions to every rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikers_Against_Child_Abuse is a biker gang against child abuse. They go out of their way to keep children safe. Although there are a few members who have actually been convicted of the very thing the gang hopes to prevent. So, overall I’m still suspicious if the BACA’s intentions are truly their intentions. Additionally, you could see that BACA intimidation and vigilanteism are likely not a good answer to the problem they are trying to solve.
Yeah, this is a big deal for me, and I had always heard that they were racist as a rule. I had a couple of acquaintances (probably hangers on or whatever by now) that swore up and down that wasn’t the case. They know some Filipino Angel or something, idk.
There is always exceptions to the rule as well. Like some Hell’s Angel’s branch is allowing minorities and there is likely some in-fighting about it.
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Haven’t interacted on anything more than a superficial level. 15 years ago when I was in a band and playing shows, I encountered a lot of Warlocks. 90% of the time they were awesome. That 10% of the time was coo-coo-nuts-bullshit. There were two “guards” outside of a bar I was playing a show at that looked goofy as shit to me, but I didn’t inquire and I didn’t care. They had some crazy looking dude inside at the bar and I just stayed away from all of ‘em. Never had an experience more negative than that one, but again, 90% of the time they were actually solid people to be around.
